


Hunting

by Jena Bartley (jenab)



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 19:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenab/pseuds/Jena%20Bartley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of second season episode Twilight the team goes hunting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://celli.livejournal.com/profile)[**celli**](http://celli.livejournal.com/)

Dark clouds rolled across the night sky obscuring the brightness of the full moon.  The air was damp, heavy with the promise of rain and freshly turned earth.

McGee huddled deeper into his coat, chilled from sitting on the damp ground for so long.  The huge family vault behind him provided some protection from the wind as well as shielding him from being spotted.  He had a clear view of Kate’s grave from where he sat. 

The sight of the new grave piled high with fresh flowers kept him flashing back to earlier in the day.  To the sound of a priest intoning mass and the passing of a loved one; the sounds of quiet weeping from Kate’s mother and Abby who had been pressed tightly against him in the pew.  The grim visages of Gibbs and Tony standing over the open ground as Kate’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground stayed the longest with McGee. 

Tony sat beside him, eyes flickering constantly over the graveyard, but never really at the grave.  
McGee didn’t have to look at Tony to know the other man’s expression was one of complete emptiness, and had been since he had been splattered with Kate’s blood.  There were no jokes, no teasing, not even an expression of rage or grief in the past week.  He had even stopped calling McGee ‘Probie”. 

McGee wasn’t sure how to deal with this Tony.  It was as though the Tony he knew, the one who seemed nothing more than a clown was gone, replaced by an automaton.  McGee wanted to reach out to Tony, to ask him how he was doing, and if there was anything McGee could do for him but he didn’t.  This Tony sitting beside him scared him and made him wish for the first time since he had met Dinozzo that he had the old Tony back or even part of the old Tony.  It was if Kate’s death had also killed the Tony he knew. 

Somewhere else Gibbs was prowling through the graveyard, a look of vengeance in his eyes that had been there ever since McGee had seen Kate’s body lying on that rooftop with a bullet in her head.  McGee could understand that, he wanted vengeance as well for Kate’s murder.  And he knew how to deal with Gibbs on a vendetta better than he knew how to deal with Tony. 

They were out here in the middle of the night, standing vigil over their friend’s grave and waiting for the man who had killed her.  Gibbs was convinced Ari Haswari would visit Kate’s grave to pay his final respects to her, he believed Haswari’s arrogance was such that no one could catch him or keep him locked up.  Gibbs aimed to show Ari the wrongness of his ways and to exact his vengeance for Kate’s murder.

McGee wanted vengeance as well but he desperately hoped at the end of this hunt, Gibbs and Tony would still be the same, a little more cynical and burdened by grief but not tainted by their vendetta against Ari. 


End file.
